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Friday, May 05, 2006

My Baby Is Broken! (where are the mommy sedatives?)

E broke her arm this week - of course, the right one, with two weeks left of school, so we will be improvising. Yay for homeschool!

I did not see what happened, but she said she was walking down the slide at the park, tripped, and put her arm out to catch herself - and obviously hit hard. All I heard was "Oh, dear!" and saw her arm flopping as she ran over to me. I didn't think it was broken, because she only started to cry when she saw how her arm was hanging. We were there with another family, and thankfully when I said, "What should I do?" the other mom said, "Where is your pediatrician's office? Go there, right now." I look back and laugh at myself, because my brain just shut down at the sight of my baby's arm flopping like a rag doll's. I think it's a good thing I didn't realize it was broken because I may have just passed out on the spot. So much for grace under pressure!

She snapped both the radius and the ulna right through, a couple of inches behind her wrist. We went to the pediatrician, then the orthopaedist, then the ER, where they tried to set the bone. New X-rays today showed that it didn't work, so we get to go in for general anesthesia on Monday, where they will try to set it one more time, and then do surgery if that doesn't work.

I am (quietly) freaking out over here. At the ER, the nurse told me I should probably not be in the room when they worked on E's arm, because it would be very upsetting, but the doctor did not know, apparently, that I might want to leave because he just started. It was awful, to put it mildly! But, E needed me to be there with her, and she, thanks to the magic of conscious sedation, doesn't remember a thing. My shoulders are so tight they hurt. My stomach has butterflies that seem to have taken up permanent residence, but E is left with only a vague distrust of the orthopaedist. I'm glad for her.

This puts a wee kink in the summer plans - no swimming lessons in two weeks, and potentially no ballet recital, either. I'm also thinking we may have to change vacation plans, because she will probably need her cast off in the middle of when we were going to be out of town for an extended trip. Ah, well, c'est la vie! And, she is alive, she didn't break her neck or have a concussion, or any of the other horrifying things that can happen while children play.